


Myfanwy, rhymes with Tiffany

by Peppermione



Series: Glengrove [1]
Category: The Rook (TV 2019), The Rook - Starz
Genre: F/F, F/M, Finally just got bugged by enough ideas to start this small series of one-shots, Multi, if someone has a better title name idea please let me know, let's see where this goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 06:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peppermione/pseuds/Peppermione
Summary: A collection of one-shots focusing on the relationship between Gestalt and Myfanwy, starting with their first interactions at Glengrove





	1. First, Eliza

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys like it! I haven't written fan fiction in so long, and I'm really excited to share this with you guys!
> 
> Please R&R and let me know your thoughts!

Three weeks before, Myfanwy Thomas was a normal girl.

She had two loving parents, a little sister. She had friends and homework and hobbies and arguments with her family over dinner and a favorite stuffed animal.

Myfanwy Thomas was a normal girl. Until she wasn’t. 

Until she slipped off the roof of a shed in the back of her garden. Until she knocked herself unconscious with the fall. Until she had all but zapped her father away from her. 

Now, Myfanwy Thomas wasn’t normal.

In the backseat of a nondescript black car, Myfanwy did her best to stop fidgeting. She refused to let herself break down, not while in front of Lady Farrier, at least. Myfanwy had never seen a person so composed before. Farrier appeared to be made of steel at all times, and Myfanwy refused to appear weak to her. She couldn’t let her down.

It was difficult to hear Farrier’s voice above the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, however. Even if she was being reassured of how the people at Glengrove House would be kind and treat her well. 

Myfanwy Thomas was far, far away from anything comforting or familiar.  
The men holding massive guns while guarding the gates of the compound didn’t help.

The car stopped in a small courtyard in front of the large manor-style building. To Myfanwy, it looked old. It looked scary, like the kind of old hospitals that had lots of ghosts in them. Stepping outside of the car, the cold breeze hitting her face served as a shock to her system, bringing everything back into sharp focus. 

“Well, here we are. This is Glengrove House,” Lady Farrier said as she came to stand next to Myfanwy. It almost felt as if Farrier wanted her to happily jump up and down at the sight. All it made Myfanwy feel was apprehensive. If it was run by nuns, she was running away.

“Lady Farrier! It’s a pleasure to have you here!” Exclaimed a short, dark-haired woman as she approached them. Maybe it wasn’t this usual for Farrier to drop someone off here. Going by the woman’s reaction, it was a very exciting event.

Myfanwy ignored their exchange of pleasantries in favor of looking around. The large building was center-stage in the middle of nowhere. She could see there was a large garden around the left corner of the house. She hoped she could sit there every once in a while, that she wouldn’t be caged in like some sort of animal. It would help her to not miss her home as much, though now just the thought brought pain.

She jumped as Farrier touched her shoulder, nudging her inside for what the dark-haired woman (whose name she had missed) called the ‘royal tour’ of the house. Again, the woman’s voice was ignored in favor of looking around. The inside of the house felt just as cold as the outside. The moved through white hallway after white hallway until Myfawny forgot where the house had even started. The house didn’t seem to have an end, only more and more corridors and more and more stairs, until it didn’t seem to have a beginning either. As they kept walking, they passed through what seemed to be a large ballet classroom with a mirror covering an entire wall. Her eyes caught movement in the mirror and she stopped, curious to see what people actually did there. But she only caught a glimpse of 4 people with white-blonde hair before the door was closed on her and Farrier urged her along. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back at the door as they walked on.

Eventually, they reached the part of the building with all of the rooms. The dark-haired woman led her inside of a large room with four beds. Only one of them was bare, the bed neatly made with grey covers. The other three beds had clothes on them, and their bedside tables were decorated in different ways. 

“This is your bed, Myfanwy,” the dark-haired woman said with a warm smile. “You’ll be sharing with three other girls. All of the bedrooms are set up like this. I’m sure you’ll make friends very soon.”

Myfanwy knew she was trying to be welcoming. But the stark contrast between her bed and the others only made her feel more isolated.

“Okay. Thank you,” she said quietly, placing her backpack on her bed. She hoped she could also get things to decorate her side with. She hadn’t brought anything from home. 

They didn’t allow her to settle in her room. Instead, both women led her through another maze of hallways to meet a Dr. Bristol. 

All Myfanwy Thomas wanted was to crawl into bed and cry.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first, Gestalt wasn’t quite sure what had woken them up in the middle of the night. One moment they had been deeply asleep; the next, all four bodies were sitting upright in their beds, blinking in the darkness.

Robert, Teddy, and Alex scanned their room, but it only took a few seconds for them to realize what had woken them up was coming from the room Eliza was in. Everything was normal, except the bulge that had been underneath the covers of the usually empty bed was no longer there. 

When Eliza had arrived to her room after dinner along with the other two girls she shared a room with, she was surprised to find someone occupying the bed. Someone new. Someone who didn’t want to be disturbed, if the fact that the covers completely covered them was anything to go by. 

But now that someone new was no longer underneath the covers. Instead, Gestalt could hear faint sobs coming from behind the closed door of the bathroom through Eliza’s ears. A part of them wanted to go back to sleep. The person behind the bathroom door would cry until they didn’t, and then they would come back to their bed and sleep.  
But the longer Eliza sat in her bed and listened to the sounds, the more they couldn’t bring themselves to ignore it. The person behind the door sounded so… alone. And Gestalt knew all about being alone.

Slipping out of bed, Eliza quietly made her way to the bathroom door. She raised her hand to knock, then lowered it again. Another heart-wrenching sob had her knocking on the door. The noises immediately stopped, and Gestalt wasn’t sure if that was any better.

“Hello?” Eliza asked very softly, not wanting to scare the person behind the door off or wake up the other two girls in the room. There was another long beat of silence, and Gestalt was beginning to actually worry when they finally heard a voice answer.

“Y-Yeah? Sorry, I-I’ll be out in a minute,” the voice said. It was female, too.

“You don’t have to come out. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Eliza said softly again. Eliza was always the body Gestalt allowed themselves to be more open, more kind, with.

Another beat of silence was followed by a sniffle. 

“You know, I’m not sure that I am,” the girl behind the door answered. There was something about her voice – in her voice – that pulled at Gestalt’s heart. Something that made them want to reach out.

“If you want me to leave you alone, I can. I will. But…” Eliza took a deep breath and offered. “But if you don’t want to be alone, I can stay.”

Eliza stood with her ear pressed to the door as she was met with silence, trying to listen for any sounds. Gestalt was beginning to think that they had terribly misjudged the situation and overstepped and were ready to head back to bed when the lock on the door clicked. There was nothing else, no other words. But it was an invitation, no matter how small. Eliza quietly opened the door. Whatever it was they had been imagining was behind that door, it wasn’t a skinny girl sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest while still in jeans and a sweater. Nor was it the long, fire-red hair that made Eliza’s fingers itch from wanting to comb through it. The girl looked so small, so vulnerable. Gestalt hated looking vulnerable, and they supposed this girl wouldn’t like it either if anyone else saw her like this. Stepping inside the bathroom, Eliza quickly shut the door behind her. The lights of the bathroom flickered almost ominously for a few seconds. Then, it was just them, and the massive silence between them.

Eliza cautiously moved closer as the girl continued to look at tiles of the bathroom floor. As Eliza sat down in front of her, the girl quickly wiped away her tears and sniffled again. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hog the bathroom,” the redheaded girl began to say until Eliza kindly shushed her, reaching out to grab a piece of toilet paper.

“Don’t apologize. Glengrove is scary. I should know, I was raised here,” she said, handing the girl the paper. Gestalt’s eyes met tearful green ones, and Eliza gave her a kind smile. Gestalt was good at kind through Eliza.  
“You were?” the girl asked. Gestalt nodded, but didn’t offer any more information. There was no need for more information, it wasn’t important. “I just… I tried to sleep, but… it all feels so cold. And I feel alone.”

The girl’s bottom lip quivered again, signaling the possibility of more tears. Gestalt wasn’t sure if they could handle more tears, not with those heartbreaking green eyes.

“It feels lonely, in the beginning,” Eliza added for her benefit. For Gestalt, it was always lonely. It was always just them. But it didn’t have to be – wouldn’t be – for this girl. “But it gets better. The food isn’t bad. We even have parties from time to time. There’s a great garden. It even has a playground with swings in it.”

The girl smiled and Gestalt took it as a victory, even if it was a small smile.

“I do like swings,” she said softly, her voice no longer as sad.

“And there’s people, like us. Well, not exactly like us, but similar,” Eliza continued. “You don’t have to be alone.”

The girl was quiet as she took in her words, fidgeting with the piece of paper.

“But I don’t have my family anymore,” she finally said, her voice breaking at the word ‘family’.

Gestalt had never had a family, other than the Checquy. It had raised them and cared for them and molded them. They had never known anything but the Checquy. But maybe family could mean more than just psychologists and teachers and orders and compartmentalizing.

“Then you can make a new family here. We look after each other,” Eliza said, gently brushing her fingers against the girl’s hand. The warmth of her skin and the almost electric jolt Gestalt felt almost made all four bodies jump.

The girl finally looked up and looked at Eliza, seemingly taking the sight of her in. Gestalt tried not to fidget, but there was something about that gaze that made them feel unguarded. Then something changed in her eyes, almost as if a small spark had returned to them.

“Okay,” she said softly, nodding to herself. 

The girl reached out and grabbed more toilet paper, blowing her nose. Eliza waited patiently until she had composed herself, standing up and holding out her hand to help the girl up. As small as she had appeared at first glance, she was around Eliza’s height now. 

“I’m Eliza Gestalt, by the way,” they said, because they had learned to introduce each body by their own name, not just as Gestalt. Not as all of them, but as each of them. 

“Myfanwy,” the girl said, her hand still in Eliza’s. “Rhymes with Tiffany.”

“Myfanwy,” Eliza repeated, trying out the vowels on her tongue, the other three bodies doing the same simultaneously. 

It was a strange name, but Gestalt was strange too.


	2. Second, Teddy

When Gestalt had first arrived to Glengrove House, the Checquy staff tried to figure out the range of Gestalt’s hivemind abilities. Among other things, they discovered that Gestalt could sustain their sleeping habits by having only one body of all four sleeping at a time when necessary. What the staff and everyone else at Glengrove also discovered very quickly was that Gestalt was not a morning person – or persons. Before, when they were younger, getting up early often resulted in all four Gestalt bodies throwing simultaneous tantrums. Nowadays, it simply resulted in the knowledge that no one should interact with a Gestalt body before at least one of them had ingested coffee. 

The cafeteria was largely deserted when Teddy stepped inside, as was common at that hour of the morning. Using only one body to go ahead and get food and coffee allowed the other three bodies to rest for a few more minutes. It was a useful trick. Hearing his stomach rumbling, Teddy made a beeline for the food counter and grabbed a plate. 

Only to stop short at the person standing in front of the food, making no moves to actually grab anything. Gestalt easily recognized the long, fire-red hair. It wasn’t really a surprise to Gestalt to see Myfanwy up so early. They hadn’t seen her at all before heading back to their rooms after dinner. It was clear she skipped dinner in favor of hiding underneath the covers for her first night at Glengrove. Of course she was hungry. 

But she also was just staring at the food. 

And it was 6:30 in the morning. 

Gestalt had no patience at 6:30 in the morning.

\-----------------------------------

“Are you always so stupid or is today a special occasion?” 

The sharp words, dancing on an East London accent, cut through her train of thought, making Myfanwy jump. She turned around and was surprised at the sight of who was talking to her. 

The white-blonde hair should have been a dead giveaway to Myfanwy, but it was the hypnotic sky-blue eyes that instantly reminded her of Eliza. 

But this was not Eliza, unless she had grown five inches and fifty pounds of muscle overnight. No, the boy in front of her screamed older brother, Myfanwy concluded. 

He also seemed to be a bit of an asshole. 

“It might just be a special occasion. But I'm surprised you've got any neurons left with all those protein shakes,” Myfanwy said calmly, glancing at his arms to make a point. 

The boy blinked at her, as if shocked that she had talked back at all, before clenching his jaw. 

“Are you one of those weird EVAs? Do you ingest your food by looking at it?” He said as he pushed past her towards the scrambled eggs without any pleasantries. 

It made Myfanwy settle more firmly on her asshole verdict. 

“Are you Eliza’s brother?” She asked, passive-aggressively shoving him lightly to reach for the beans. 

“You could say that,” the boy answered lightly, smiling to himself as if there was an inside joke, making Myfanwy grit her teeth. What did that even mean? Either he was or he wasn't! 

“And what's your name?”

“Teddy.”

“Teddy, I'm surprised someone so nice could have that much of an asshole for a brother,” she snapped at him as she furiously filled her plate with food -- options; she liked options -- before stomping away. 

\--------------------------------

Gestalt watched as Myfanwy stomped away towards an empty table, still reeling a little from the short exchange. 

No one had ever spoken to them like that, matching them toe to toe. And gone was the fragile girl of the night before in the light of day. This Myfanwy burned as bright as her hair. It was exhilarating. 

Gestalt wanted to know all about Myfanwy Thomas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked this one as well! It was a bit tougher to write but I'm publishing it before I talk myself out of it. 
> 
> Please R&R and I hope to have the next part up soon!


End file.
